The Impact of Transitions Related to COVID-19 on Pharmacy Student Well-being

Objective. To characterize the impact of COVID-19 transitions on first professional year (P1) students' domain-specific and overall well-being. Methods. All P1 students (N=74) enrolled at one college of pharmacy self-reported their career, community, financial, physical, social, and overall well-being on a weekly basis from January 6 through April 27, 2020. Parametric statistical tests and effect sizes were used to compare well-being scores pre-transition and post-transition and to compare well-being scores to a previous cohort of P1 students. Results. Mean well-being scores decreased when comparing pre-transition vs post-transition scores, with effect sizes ranging from d(av)=.16 for financial well-being to d(av)=.84 for social well-being. The average percent of students that reported struggling increased by 86.1% (16.8% vs 31.2%) post-transition, and the average percent of students that reported suffering post-transition was 351% higher (1.3% vs 6%) than pre-transition. Conclusion. Pharmacy students' domain specific and overall well-being significantly decreased with COVID-19-related transitions. The percentage of students reporting struggling or suffering significantly increased post-transition.